Healthy Diet Plan for Breastfeeding Mothers

Diet Plan for Indian Breastfeeding Moms

Feeling hungry very often like never before? Yes because your baby is growing day by day and he is dependent on you during first 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding. Modern ways say eat anything as before. Your mom has given you list of tradition items to have like laddoos and panjiris. Wonder how does a perfect breastfeeding diet plan should be? Lets see how we can combine modern and traditional ways to make a perfect diet plan for Indian breastfeeding mommy.

Most Important Tips for Successful Breastfeeding

1. Have Lots of Porridges

Why? Because they are easy to digest. According to Indian traditional method, nursing women are given kheers/soups more than usual food, though your dietician will tell you, eat whatever you want. You have to eat a lot and digest it too. These special porridges prepared for Indian women by their moms has many galactogouges like Cumin, fenugreek seeds, poppy seeds, Ghee, almonds etc. You will not get bored of eating.

2. Stay Away from Spicy and Oily Foods

Though they say whatever you eat has no direct impact on baby, it is not true. Your baby will show you how your eating affects him/her. The spicy and oily food upsets baby’s stomach, and provides no significant amount of nutrients.

3. Eat Short Meals Frequently

If you eat heavy 2-3 meals, your digestive system will suffer. so take small meals with increased frequency.

4. Early Morning and Late Night Kheer

Take one bowl of kheer at night just before sleeping and also one more just after getting up. The Date Kheer/Almond Kheer/Aliv Kheer are best for nursing mothers.

List of Foods Must to Have: Secret of Successful Breastfeeding

Below are the foods you should include in your diet.
For details on Healthy Foods for Breastfeeding these click here

1. Fenugreek Seeds

Indians are lucky to get fresh fenugreek Leaves and Seeds, in rest of the world nursing mom take fenugreek supplements. The sprouted seeds are blessing for you during 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding. Add fenugreek sprouts to your regular subzi everyday. Or just try stir fry of it with onion and garlic. They do not taste bitter due to sprouting.

Diet Plan for First 40 days of Breastfeeding:

First 40 days are very important for you and baby. You experience hormonal and physical changes in your body. Your body is healing; regaining strength, making milk.
While selecting food for upcoming 4 weeks you want to select not only nutrient dense food but the food which is digested easily. You might get different advices about food from different people. Your mother or grandmother will tell you to eat selected foods while doctor mostly will tell you that you can eat anything as long as it’s healthy. So to make a best diet plan let’s see how can you combine best of both ways: traditional way and modern way.
1. Select all traditional galactagogue foods in your diet
2. Widen the limit, by adding healthy foods which may not be traditional foods e.g. curd or fermented foods like Idli and Dosa but make sure they are not sour i.e. fermented for short time
3. Include all liquid diet like Kheer, Panjiri and porridge in your diet as they get digested easily but do not limit diet to it. Include regular healthy meals too. (i.e. Chapatti, dal rice, salad)
4. Select nutrition rich foods as you have to fulfill nutritional requirement of 2 bodies.
5. Traditionally breastfeeding mother’s food plate is loaded with ghee and nuts, you don’t have to eat too much of it. But as these are nutrients rich food items you don’t want to skip it from daily intake.
6. Very early morning breakfast and late night milk is very important as your baby will feed during night also. Your body has to be prepared for anytime breast milk need.
7. You surely want to avoid chilly, spices, extra oil, junk food not only because its unhealthy for you but also because it may upset your baby’s stomach. Same way you should avoid: Potato, dal except moong dal, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli. As written above you should include nutrient rich foods in every meal as you are only having food for requirement of two i.e. you and your baby. So you should not include empty calories food.

NOTES:
1. Non vegetarian should include Fish curry or meat curry in meal but do not use chilly or spices in it. You should avoid eat meat; you should just use the soup in curry. You can boil meat for a long time for better extract of meat. Have Egg whites in breakfast.
2. You need to keep yourself hydrated, drink water or any healthy drink regularly. Most of times while breastfeeding you will get thirsty so it’s a good practice to drink 1 glass of water just before you start breastfeeding the baby.
3. You may use simple herbal tea instead of plain water.
4. Use jiggery instead of sugar wherever possible. Jaggery is source of iron.
See some recipes here for breastfeeding moms.

Stage 2: After 40 days till baby is 6 months old
After first very caring 40 days of your baby’s life, he/she is now ready to try new tastes in breast milk.
You still have to continue same diet plan with an addition of variety in food.
For 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding you need to eat enough food as your baby is daily developing physically and mentally.
You may go on slowly introducing different vegetables, fruits, Chicken/mutton to your diet still avoiding spicy, oily and junk foods.
Do not take more than one new food in your diet in a day because you want to see if baby is ok with it (Like baby is not colic and passes motion as usual).
Once baby is 5 months old, you can eat all kinds of beans, potatoes, citric fruits, idli/dosa made up of well fermented batter, onion, even moderate chilies/spices. You can use black pepper in moderate in place of chilies. As you are going to start solids once baby is 6 months old so having all types of food through breast milk now can make her digestive system ready for direct solids.
Once baby is of 5 months old, you can skip all extra breakfasts or snacks slowly, because in this last month of exclusive breastfeeding, you can use the reserves from your body which are stored during pregnancy and last 5 months. But go slowly on dieting else it may affect breast milk production and your health too. Remember exclusive breastfeeding itself is working for your weight loss.

Stage 3: 7 months to 2 years
Now you can have your regular but still healthy diet. (You should have diet same as you had in pregnancy.)
Even after you started solids to baby you still have to breastfeed same quantity of milk for at least next one month. So go easy on dieting for weight loss, you still need energy and nutrients.
You don’t need the extra snacks in between your meals, so you can skip them.
After baby is around 7-8 months you may change your baby’s diet more on solids and less on breast milk.
Your baby is directly having energy/fat rich foods like ghee so you can reduce that in your own diet.
Read Weight loss after 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding.
NOTE: During breastfeeding period you must avoid alcohol/smoking.

Essential Tips Every Woman Must know About Breastfeeding

• Try to feed your baby at frequent intervals since as more as you feed your newborn baby the production of milk increases, especially night feeds are vital to set up breastfeeding and to uphold milk production.
• Since breast milk is a complete food, so it is sufficient for your baby for the first six months. That means there is not any need of any additional supplement like water or juice. However, mothers can consume additional supplements to increase the production and nutrients of the breast milk.
• To give proper nourishment to your young one, it is imperative that you must intake adequate amount of liquid products such as soups, juices, milk and most important water.
• Expose your nipples to light or air after every feed you give during first few days of breastfeeding. Let a little amount breast milk to dry up on your nipples as it has anti-infective properties.
• If your breasts get distended and engorged then try out cold compresses as it helps in diminishing swelling, after that gently massage and take the warm shower to regulate the flow of milk.
• Do not worry if you put on weight and don’t begin to cut out your diets or start exercises at least for three months to lose the extra kilos. At this time your baby is entirely dependent on your diet and fat & carbs of your body are required for baby’s good health.
• If you are working women, you can store your breast milk but warm up the breast milk only by placing the bottle of breast milk in hot water. Do not directly heat the milk as it might leads in losing of Vitamin C contents from milk.

Use the above guide to make the best choices when planning your diet. Having food timely helps in sufficient milk production so stick to the diet plan throughout the exclusive breastfeeding time. Eating variety of nutritious foods helps meet your extra nutrients need. Learn more about diet for breastfeeding mothers to increase milk here.

54 Comments

Hi Jayashree, Thanks for your comment. You should never skip breakfast. For everyone, a healthy n heavy breakfast is must. As your baby is 5 months old, you can reduce on extra fats we as Indian BF moms add on in our diet. e.g. extra ghee on dal rice, provided you have taken enough fats in your diet during first 5 months of exclusive breastfeeding. If you are asking this for weight loss then 2 important tips for you, Increase liquid diet and greens and reduce extra fats in your diet. Please note. you still need lots of energy as you have to exclusively breastfeed your baby for one more month and continue it even after intoduction of solid food to your baby. So go slow, dont make any changes in one day, give your body some time to accept changes.

The fore-milk i.e. breast-milk at beginning is watery always. You may not have noticed it before. Now in pumping you observed. Its absolutely normal. If even after one cup of expression, milk is watery then talk to your breastfeeding consultant.

Hi Anurag, Yes, off course. It doesn’t matter if normal delivery or c-section. Diet plan suggestion is same for all new mothers.
New mom can have Bajra as much as she likes just one thing I would like to mention is: According to Indian traditional thinking, Bajra is known for inducing body heat. So if new mom is not so used to this grain, slowly add it to the diet. After my delivery, I used to have Sprouted-Bajra-Powder Porridge once in 2 days and one Bajra roti medium size every day. Why sprouted: It increases nutrition and makes very easy for digestion, why Porridge: Its easy to digest and tasty too :D.. It was winter so I had it regularly. If it was summer I would have had a little less than mentioned. I hope this helps!

Hello Mani,
The shelf life of bajara flour is very short. Even though you can buy the organic flour at shops they keep it at room temperature, I will recommend homemade Bajara flour only.
For best nutritious porridge, make flour of sprouted bajara, it will double the nutritional value of the flour. Click here to know recipe sprouted bajara flour
You may make it for 1 kg bajara and keep it in refrigerator in air tight container you may use it for up to 2 months if kept well packed in refrigerator.
Recipe for Porridge from flour: Click here

Hi Aesha,
Its very simple. In this one of our previous posts about making sprouted whole grains flour you can find detailed instructions. Porridge Recipe for nursing moms is quite similar to this recipe but for adults you can also add some salt and healthy spices like cumin powder to it.

Hi Sapana….Thanks for the article. Very informative. Can you please advise if I can have Chapatis in my diet. Some say that it may cause problems to my breastfed baby. He is eight months old now. Not sure but if yes, then how many times in a day can I have since that’s my staple food.

Hi Neha, Is your baby allergic to wheat? If yes, then you should talk to your doctor. Other wise wheat is totally ok. Whole wheat is in fact very good for breast feeding mothers. It provides energy and fibers. Chapati was part of my breastfeeding diet from day 3-4 of delivery. In fact in maternity hospital I was given Chapati in my all meals.

Hi Sapna i have reduced a lot of my weight i am 32 yr 5.2 height now weight is 45 whenever i meet people they say u have lost your health my baby is 16 month now still breast feeding plz let me know how to gain extra weight. Please help

Hello Padma, Reducing weight rapidly after breastfeeding is surely not healthy. Try adding high protein foods to your diet. As baby is still on breastfeeding, maintaining your calcium level is very crucial. so Milk, Dairy products, Bananas, figs, almonds, lean meat and lentils is what you should have more in you meals. Growing baby keeps you on run, which makes you miss your regular meal times. But try to maintain the schedule and never ever skip your breakfast.

Hi Chiki,
If you do not have any allergy of capsicum and you have taken it before pregnancy then there should not be any problem in having it now. Red / yellow / green bell peppers are very healthy specially if consumed raw they provide you high amount of Vitamin C.

Hi ,
My baby is 7 months complete and I am feeding my boy two meals in the and breastfeed him but I am not sure if he s getting enough milk my mil insists on starting cows milk and says I don’t get enough. Pls advice how can I tell my baby is getting enough milk

Hi Mel, After 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding as we start solids to babies its difficult to determine if the breastfeeding is enough or not. I would suggest you, do not think about it, keep feeding baby as usual. Also keep the no of feedings enough. E.g. if you were feeding around 10-12 times in 24 hrs. Keep it same. With frequent feeding your body produces more breast milk. Anyway now you should think about solids and feed your baby first foods which are nutritious.
Here are some informative posts for you: 1) How to increase breastmilk, Seeds to improve breast-milk production
2) Introducing solids to Baby
Hope This helps

am was searching about “breastfeeding healthy diet plan” and i was faced with your great article . God job especially your article is superior to whattoexpect article which is a giant website. I wish to cooperate in the near future for our readers

This is a complete diet plan for breastfeeding moms that every new mom should follow. I have been following it from past 04 months and the benefits I received are commendable. I just want to ask you that till when I have to continue the same. My kid is 6 months old and he has started solids. Should I have to continue or I can switch to my regular diet?

Hi Ridhima,
Thanks for coming back and leaving me a valuable feedback.
Well the breastfeeding diet plan and food is to be followed for exclusive breastfeeding. But please make a smooth change to regular diet. specially with the hard to digest food and spicy food. As a mothers body also get used to such diet in this period and your baby’s major food is still the breastmilk. In period of 1-2 months you can shift to usual pre-pregnancy diet without any worry.

Hi Pratibha,
Horse Gram Soup right (We call Horse Gram as ‘Kulith’)? Its delicious and very healthy. But as far as I know it is known to induce body heat. In my native state, we avoid it in summers. Also most of breastfeeding foods are already body-heat inducing so I think you should try it in small quantity first. Ragi is best in any season, least allergen and tasty too. Any such grains you use, try to use the sprouted grains’ flour because it is easy to digest and also way healthier than normal flour.

First of all the negative thinking of mother must not be there. Increase the number of feedings. Seeing a breastfeeding consultation is highly recommended. Sometimes the nursing positions are incorrect. Your food is also very important. You should have healthy foods and increase the liquid intake. Hence porridges are good. they are easy to digest and help in breastmilk production.

Hi Sapana, my baby girl is one year 9months old now and I’m breastfeeding. The problem is I’m loosing my weight too much approx 1 to 2 kg per month. Now I’m only 41kg. I don’t know how to deal with it. How to increase my weight while breastfeeding? Please help with a good diet chart.

Hi sapna my baby is 4th mth. He is not tkg feeding properly. . I thk he is not getting satisfied . As I feel like milk is cmg like water only. . M hvg thyroid plus I hve reduced 3-4 kg weight in 15 days.. I had loose motions for 2 days.. 4m dat day till now he is not hvg milk proper.. mworried wat to do.. how shld I gain my weight so dat baby get proper milk while feeding. . Wat shld I eat.. help me out.. shld I start outside milk

Hi Ankita,
In breastfeeding, the milk which comes first in every session is called as foremilk its watery and its mainly to satisfy thirst of the baby. The Fat+Protein rich milk comes afterwards.
As you have thyroid, I would suggest you to talk to a certified Breastfeeding consultant. (Please let me know your city by an email at [email protected], I know the certified lactation consultants head who can help me suggest one from your location, please do not reply to comment as its public, send me email only) I myself consulted lactation consultant 2 times for some other reasons. They are very helpful. They encourage you for healthy breastfeeding and also solve health issues like clogged milk ducts etc.
Here are the foods which are helpful to make baby gain weight during breastfeeding: Click Here

Hi Shivi,
During my study of the topic, I have learnt that, we are not supposed to discuss/advice openly on how to reduce the breast milk production. As in India and also all over world, we promote breastfeeding. It may not convince you.
I will tell you what things increase the milk production so you can reduce on them to control the breast milk production
1. Frequent feeding, more milk production
2. More fluid intake
3. Galactogogues: Fenugreek seed, Cumin, gourds (Bottle gourds etc) etc.

One more thing, if you feed only during day time and not during night time then that may be the reason lactation is not balanced.

If it is bothering you too much, talk to a breastfeeding consultant. Send me an email at [email protected]. I will send you phone number of the one closest to you.

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